Law enforcement moves to stamp out widespread crypto Ponzis
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Homepage > News > Business > Law enforcement moves to stamp out widespread crypto Ponzis There is no salvation this Easter period for global crypto scammers: a Brazilian judge handed down a record prison sentence to the man convicted of leading the money laundering operation for Braiscompany, while in the United States, the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) and U.S. Attorney’s Office filed parallel charges against the man behind a fraudulent crypto scheme that raised $198 million from investors worldwide. Record sentence in Brazil In the first of these actions, Judge Vinícius Costa Vidor of the 4th Federal Court of Campina Grande, Brazil, handed money launderer Joel Ferreira de Souza 128 years behind bars in an April 15 ruling. De Souza was the financial mastermind behind the digital asset Ponzi scheme Braiscompany, whose 20,000 investors were defrauded of an estimated 1.11 billion reais (around $190 million). De Souza was convicted of using shell companies and proxy accounts to launder the fraud proceeds and received 128 years behind bars, one of the longest sentences ever handed down for financial crimes in Brazil. Two other executives were also sentenced: de Souza’s son, Victor Augusto Veronez de Souza, who received 15 years, and top broker Gesana Rayane Silva, who was handed 27 years and 10 months, along with earlier convictions that bring her total sentence to more than 40 years. A joint amount of 36.5 million reais (around $6.3 million) was also set to compensate investors for damages caused, according to local media reports. Fellow defendants Mizael Moreira Silva and Clélio Fernando Cabral do Ó were acquitted on money laundering charges due to insufficient evidence. Braiscompany promised investors monthly returns of about 8% on digital assets they “locked up” with the company for one year. However, in December 2022, the company stopped paying customers, and…
Filed under: News - @ April 25, 2025 9:19 am